Battlefield: Bad Company 2 review

Back in January EA openly declared war on Activision's Call of Duty series, stating that the first-person shooter genre is important to it, and it's a genre that it doesn't want to give up. Now March, the publisher has unleashed the first salvo of its attack on Activision with Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Battlefield's bread and spread is, and always has been, with massive multiplayer modes, and the developer's time in the kitchen cooking this game as been well spent here: Console gamers can enjoy 24-player multiplayer battles, and PC gamers can face off with as many as 32 players in epic online skirmishes.

You'll discharge assault rifles, machine guns, shotguns and plough through epic playing fields in tanks, ATVs and even helicopters. Get enough players on your team and prepare for an intense multiplayer experience unmatched by all.

Visually, it'll impress as well. It honestly has some of the most beautiful vistas I've ever seen in a video game. The frame rate remained steady on Xbox, and never really drops despite the enormous draw distances that the game utilises. The sound is equally impressive, with distant cracks of a sniper rifle as effectively mixed as the nearby screams of your allies getting a bullet through the nose.

Extra weapons, gadgets and perks are unlocked as you play through the multiplayer, similar to the first Bad Company. This time however, the game rewards you based on how you play, so if you play as an Engineer a lot, then you're going to unlock the Engineer equipment quicker.

There's also a new customisation system. Rather than using a preset class, they can be customised with different "gadgets" and perks. For example, with my Assault Class I could equip a mounted shotgun, use a perk that lets me carry more ammo, and then use another perk that strengthens the vehicles I drive.

The game has addressed many of the issues with the first game as well, such as the lack of multiplayer game mode variety. Bad Company 2 features a new game mode called "Squad Deathmatch", in which four teams of four face off against each other. The first team to get 50 kills wins. A co-operative campaign mode would've been terrific too, or at least some co-operative missions similar to Modern Warfare 2's "spec-ops" mode. But, alas, this is a no-show.

Single-player modeAlthough primarily a multiplayer game, Bad Company 2 does have a single-player campaign. The story takes place at some point after the first Bad Company, with the same squad on a support mission in Russian territory. After a short while conflict erupts and it's up to you to prevent the Russians from assaulting America using an EMP "super-weapon".

The plot of the game's single-player campaign may not sound appetisingly original. Mostly because it isn't. But what it offers is a satisfying excuse to shoot people, and it's worth finishing a level if only to hear some of the humorous banter that comes from the squad during the game's cut-scenes.

My most pressing issue is that it doesn't acknowledge the events of the original Bad Company. We're not even given a hint about what happened to the squad after the game's ending. If you played that game it's something you'd expect to be acknowledged in a sequel.

That said, the campaign still offers a fun and engaging experience with enough variation to keep you interested throughout its modest six-hour length. There's some incentive to replay the campaign too, with collectable weapons to find and satellite uplinks to destroy if you want to go for all of the achievements/trophies the game has to offer.

So despite a few issues, the multiplayer in Bad Company 2 will be the reason for its success, and right now it stands up there as one of the best FPS experiences you can buy. Just bear in mind it's probably one to pass by if you're only interested in engrossing single-player offline shooters.

Wired.co.uk rating: 8 out of 10

Edited by Nate Lanxon

Comments

Just such a shame that the multiplayer on the PC version isn't working at the mo' for a lot of players. Lot's of "unable to connect" and random crashes back to desktop. Once again a case of a game not been ready for release. Enjoying the single player campaign tho!

Alun Heseltine

Mar 5th 2010

Have you actually tried to play this game?Can hardly play it on most PC's.So broken it is almost a joke.If you can even get in a game it is only a matter of time until it crashes.You must have a monetary reason for such a glowing review for a messed up implementation of what could have been a fun game.

billy

Mar 5th 2010

this game will be hard pressed to compete with call of duty and win overthe small amount of on line players especally if it is complicated to playor one has trouble getting in to a gametacticle multiplay is not what we like!!, log on single player is much more funas for setting the goal to be fifty kills and the team wins....?i cant see the point in that top players on call of duty often have kill scores in excess of a 100_160+ with the objective to gian accsess to the enamey camp and capture there flag. it must be simple or we will not be interested !!

sniper

Mar 8th 2010

I've had little to no problems with online gaming, in about 10 hours of play my online game crashed at most twice. Usually when it was a good time for me to get off :P Don't let MW2 fandom deny this awesome experience to you. I mean really, lots of companies have first week glitches. Not to mention how interactive the general landscape is in Multiplayer. Need to see through a wall? Blow a hole in it! Fie on the haters, it's a good game. And my C2D 2.8Ghz 8800GTS(g92) runs it just fine.